


Lowkey

by provocative_envy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Bad Flirting, F/M, First Meetings, Ghosts, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27308221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/provocative_envy/pseuds/provocative_envy
Summary: “Trick or treat,” the guy says, grinning broadly.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Scabior
Comments: 38
Kudos: 191
Collections: Fall Fumble 2020





	Lowkey

**Author's Note:**

> 1) this was written for **[fall fumble](https://provocative-envy.tumblr.com/post/632346573991460864/round-1-voting-open-now-october-1st-4th-12-pm)** , which was fun and nice and delightful and therefore very off-brand for 2020. check out the other fics in the collection! they are excellent!
> 
> 2) the concept of this fic was supposed to be **[this](https://provocative-envy.tumblr.com/post/631349472736247808/pairing-scabior-x-hermione-granger-setting)**. it didn't quite work out the way i intended for it to, but it still counts, i think.
> 
> 3) i have spent two whole weeks fighting with this fic, please do not ever mention it to me again!
> 
> 4) happy halloween!
> 
> xoxo

* * *

“Trick or treat,” the guy says, grinning broadly.

Hermione stares at him through the three and a half inches of space afforded to her by the shiny brass chain lock on her door. He’s unfamiliar. Not particularly young. Tall, dark, and handsome, but in the kind of way that inspires words like UNTRUSTWORTHY and ENIGMATIC and CON-ARTIST to flash in blindingly bright neon letters behind her eyelids. He’s wearing a pair of low-slung acid-wash jeans and a knitted navy-blue poncho that she suspects might be sleeveless beneath his well-worn black leather jacket, cherry-red high-tops on his feet and a wide assortment of different-sized rings on his fingers.

“Sorry,” she says, belatedly, “but aren’t you a little too . . .”

“Old?” he finishes for her, winking. _Winking_. He looks much less ridiculous doing that than he arguably should. “No one’s too old for trick or treating, that’s an incredibly hurtful myth.”

Hermione forces a smile. “Of course it is.”

The guy raises an eyebrow, his scraggly, overgrown hipster goatee twitching as he flashes another grin—slower, this time, slyer, like he’s patiently waiting for her to hurry up and get in on the joke with him. It is _profoundly_ irritating.

“Age is just a number, baby,” he says, tongue darting out to curl over his teeth. “Don’t make it weird.”

She blinks, wondering if the faint flutter in her stomach is due to indigestion, frustration, or the dark, rolling cadence of his voice—the soft, wicked slant of his mouth—

“I don’t have any candy,” she blurts out.

“What’s that?”

“Candy,” she repeats, lifting her chin and crossing her arms over her lower abdomen, absently plucking at the cuffs of her cardigan. “I don’t have any. So. No tricking. Or treating. Or loitering.”

The guy flaps his wrist. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, sweetheart, you’ve got, like, five stashes of those—what are they called—from that bougie, war profiteering, hospital-looking ass little chocolate shop—” He snaps his fingers. “Bordeaux truffles? Bordeaux bars? With the, the, you know, with the sprinkles?” He cocks his head. “You buy a _lot_ of them, honestly, I was meaning to ask—”

“How do you know that?” Hermione demands, flinging her arm back to fumble with the drawer in the foyer table. There’s pepper spray in there, she’s pretty sure. It’s pink. Glittery. A leftover party favor from Lavender’s twenty-first birthday, because Lavender thinks it’s _sad_ that Hermione _lives alone_. The irony would be exquisite if it weren’t so obnoxious. “Who are you?”

The guy pauses, frowning—and then wincing—like it’s just occurred to him how _creepy_ he sounds. “Mm. Yeah. My bad. I should _not_ have said that, huh.”

“Shouldn’t have said _what?”_

“Listen,” he says, tone placating, gaze squirrely, “I wasn’t stalking _you_ , per se.”

Hermione’s grip on the pepper spray tightens. “Leave. Now.”

He purses and unpurses his lips, rocking back and forth on his heels, before reaching into his jacket and producing a _business_ card. He holds it out—it’s a glossy jet black, edges creased and crumpled, a large cartoon splat of neon green _Ghostbusters_ slime stamped across the front—but she doesn’t move to take it from him.

“Okay, so,” he starts, leaning in, ducking his head, forearm propped against the doorjamb as he peers at her through the thickly feathered fan of his lashes, so conspiratorially, casually, confidently seductive, like he hadn’t just _verbally confessed to a crime,_ “hear me out.”

“No!”

“Please?”

“ _No_ , I will not _hear you out!”_

“Okay, that’s fair, but, like—you really should?”

“I’m calling security.”

“That is suboptimal news for me, personally, but I really need you to—"

“I will _blind_ you,” Hermione says, brandishing the pepper spray. “It will _hurt_.”

“So, uh, just between bros, that feels like a bit of an aggressive escalation, but—hey, so, you are _really_ not safe in there, sweetheart, that’s all I’m trying to—”

“ _Go away._ ”

“Cool, yeah, I get that a lot, totally understand where you’re coming from, except, um, there’s a _problem_ with—”

“That is _it,_ I’m—”

“Your apartment is haunted!”

Hermione’s lips part in surprise, and of course— _of course_ —that’s when Myrtle decides to make a nuisance of herself.

“Hermione!” Myrtle shrieks, aggravatingly breathless. She floats around Hermione, her pigtails uneven and her round-framed, thick-lensed glasses slightly askew. The top three buttons of her blouse have been undone. “Is that a guest? Do we have a guest? Is it a _boy?_ Invite him in, quick, before he _leaves,_ god, what are you _doing_ , we _never_ have guests—” She yanks at the chain lock, her movements coolly, fluidly unnatural, and the front door swings open, slamming against the wall. “—you’re like a _nun_ who gave up _fun_ for Lent and believe _me_ after ten years of Catholic school that is _not_ a compliment!”

Hermione pinches the bridge of her nose. “We never have _guests_ because you’re a _dead lunatic_ ,” she hisses, glancing furtively up at—the guy.

The guy who’s still standing there, business card held aloft, with an expression on his face that she can only describe as _cheerfully dumbfounded_.

“Whoa,” he says, and then snorts. Smirks. Straightens his shoulders. His very nice, sturdy, distracting shoulders. “Not gonna lie, I did _not_ see that coming.”

“Oh, really?” Hermione asks, rolling her eyes ever-so-violently heavenward. “You didn’t see this coming? You _stalked_ me for—” She stops, brow furrowed, thumb plucking restlessly at the cap on the pepper spray. “How long were you stalking me?”

“I told you, sweetheart, I was not stalking _you_.” He nods at Myrtle. “I was stalking _her_.”

At that, Myrtle visibly preens. “Ooh, la la, an _admirer!_ Did you catch that, Hermione? He’s here for _me_ , not _you_. He’s _my_ guest.”

Hermione snatches the guy’s business card out of his hand. “ _Scaries 4 Scabior_ ,” she reads, not bothering to mask her annoyance. “ _Paranormal Investigator.”_

“That’s me,” the guy— _Scabior,_ as if that’s a real name, as if he’s a real person—says, inexplicably winking again. He tosses his too-long hair back and takes a deliberate step forward, towards Hermione, almost close enough for her to touch, if she wanted to. If she felt like it. “You gonna invite me in, sunshine?”

She huffs. “You’re a creep.”

“Kind of, yeah.”

“I don’t invite _creeps_ into my apartment.”

“What if it’s for a good cause?”

“I _am_ a _very_ good cause,” Myrtle interjects with a sniff. “I was murdered, did you know that? By a _snake_. I died in a _bathroom,_ it was horrible until all the newspapers started writing articles about me and there was a bit on _two_ separate radio shows where they played out the mystery of who might’ve killed me and it was a real popular game, you know, a real _sensation_ even if they never got it right—”

“I can get rid of her,” Scabior murmurs, low enough that Hermione can barely hear him. “It’s what I came here to do, actually. Spirits are usually a lot more . . . uh. Threatening?”

“Is that a question?”

“No?”

“Wait, do _you_ know?” Hermione suddenly whispers, waving the business card at him. “Who killed Myrtle? Is that who hired you? How are they not dead yet, it’s been—eighty years.”

Scabior’s gaze—dark, penetrating, so much sharper and clearer, more serious, more _intense_ , than she’s expecting it to be—swivels down to meet Hermione’s. Illogically, the moment seems to stretch, which is preposterous. Moments don’t stretch. Time doesn’t _do_ that.

“Yes or no, sweetheart,” he finally murmurs, which is definitely not an answer.

“To _what?”_

He shrugs. “I’m not picky.”

Hermione heaves a sigh. Next to her, Myrtle is still talking about the months following her own death with an alarming amount of fondness, of _nostalgia,_ while Scabior watches with something like awed amusement.

“You can come inside,” Hermione says, stepping back. Scabior’s smile turns sweeter. More devious. Not at all interesting, or appealing, or dangerous. “But you aren’t getting _rid_ of Myrtle, oh, my god.”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> [come join me in hell](http://www.provocative-envy.tumblr.com)


End file.
